The Medici Murders ELEONORA
Eleonora di Garzia di Toledo was born in 1553; and was more commonly known as “Leonora”. She was the daughter of García Álvarez de Toledo, 4th Marquis of Villafranca. Leonora was born in Florence, where, after the death of her mother a few months later, she was brought up by her maternal aunt Eleanor of Toledo, after whom she was named, and her aunt’s husband, Cosimo I de’ Medici.
After her aunt Eleonora died in 1562, her cousin Isabella replaced her as the first lady of Florence. Leonora and Isabella were very close, more like sisters than cousins, and they shared a lot of the same interests. Leonora was charming and popular in the Medici family. She had an outgoing personality and attracted a lot of attention. She grew up to be a beauty and a much-sought-after wife. A marriage was arranged between Leonora and her maternal cousin Pietro de’Medici; they had grown up together and were close in age. They were married at the Palazzo Vecchio in April 1571, but neither of them was happy with the union; contemporary sources say that Pietro had to be forced to consummate the marriage. The following year, Leonora gave birth to a son, Cosimo.
For Leonora, married life was not bliss. Pietro was the least stable of the Medici siblings, and from an early age he displayed a cruel and disturbing temperament that had troubled his parents.
The marriage was unhappy, and Leonora tried to spend as much time away from her husband as possible. She spent her time sponsoring charities and the arts and serving as the patron of the literary Accademia degli Alterati. Neglected and unloved Leonora followed Isabella’s example and took a lover.
During libertarian Cosimo’s lifetime, such behaviour was tolerated as long as discretion was maintained. The women’s respective husbands conducted affairs of their own, leading largely separate lives. But after the death of his father, his successor, Francesco, was very different. Cosimo’s eldest son was a much less sociable and tolerant ruler than his father and was less willing to turn a blind eye to the amorous adventures of Isabella and Leonora and to the complaints of their husbands, fueled by honour rather than jealousy.
In July 1576, Pietro de’ Medici insisted on retiring to their country villa of Cafaggiolo, north of Florence. Unwittingly, Leonora agreed it was here she would meet her end. A few days later, Pietro sent a servant to his to his brother, Grand Duke Francesco, with an alarming message:
“Last night at six hours, an accident occurred to my wife, and she died. Therefore, Your Highness, be at peace, and write me what I should do and if I should come back or not.”
The message went on to say that Leonora had been found dead in her bed, and her husband was unable to revive her. It was made to seem as if she had died in her sleep.
But in fact, Pietro had murdered his young wife in cold blood. Everyone knew very well that Leonora had been killed; it was reported that she was “deposited in a box, in San Lorenzo, without any other ceremonies”.
At first, the Medici family tried to convince people that Leonora had died of a heart attack, but King Philip II of Spain was outraged that a high-ranking Spanish subject had been treated in such a way. This forced Francesco, whose title depended on Philip’s favour, to admit the truth, writing to the king of Spain:
“Although in the letter I had told you of Donna Eleonora’s accident, I have nevertheless to say to His Catholic Majesty that Lord Pietro, our brother, had taken her life himself because of the treason she had committed through behaviour unbecoming to a lady… We wish that His Majesty should know the truth… and at the first opportunity, he will be sent the proceedings through which she should have known with what just reasons Lord Pietro acted”.
If Pietro had destroyed his wife, then his brother Francesco destroyed her character with his ‘proceedings’, which centred around proving what a loose and base woman Leonora had been and how Pietro was not to blame for his reaction to her treacherous behaviour. Her lover, Bernardino Antinori, had been arrested and strangled in his cell two days before Leonora had been killed. Love letters and poems were produced, written by Antinori, extolling Leonora’s beauty and charms in intimate, specific detail. Due to his powerful brother, Pietro was never brought to justice for Leonora’s murder, despite the protests of her brother, Pedro Álvarez de Toledo y Colonna, that her death was unacceptable.
Under pressure, Francesco eventually exiled Pietro to the Spanish court, where he spent the rest of his life racking up huge gambling debts, dying in 1604 inundated in debt.
ISABELLA.
Isabella Romola de’ Medici was born in 1542 in Florence, the daughter of Cosimo I de’ Medici, first Grand Duke of Tuscany, and Eleonora di Toledo. She was raised in the Palazzo Vecchio and later in the Palazzo Pitti with her siblings, who all received a humanist education. Isabella showed a great love for music, which carried on into adulthood. She was considered a great beauty, lively and high-spirited, but impulsive, something that was often commented on. But no one dared speak their opinion of her actions aloud; Cosimo would hear no word against his beloved daughter.
Her father arranged a marriage for her with the powerful Orsini family by marrying her to Paolo Giordano I Orsini in 1558, when she was 16. Worried about his new son-in-law’s spending, Cosimo decided to keep his daughter and her dowry in Florence, which gave Isabella an unusual level of independence for a woman in her era.
She suffered several miscarriages during the early years of the marriage, but in her late twenties she finally gave birth to two daughters and a son: Francesca, Isabella (who died as an infant), and Virginio.
Isabella’s carefree personality had always raised eyebrows, but it soon created dangerous rumours. With her husband often away tending to his military duties, after the death of her father, she was left under the watchful eye of Troilo Orsini, her husband’s cousin. Rumours spread that their relationship was more than was appropriate at the time; these rumours angered both her husband and her brother, Francesco.
On July 16, 1576, Isabella was staying at the Medici villa in Cerreto Guidi during a hunting holiday. She died suddenly and without any apparent explanation. According to her brother, Francesco, while washing her hair in the morning, she fell dead and was found by her husband, Paolo Giordano. Both men were powerful enough to make sure this was the official version. However, many people believed this account to be a cover-up for murder.
The Ferrarese ambassador, Ercole Cortile, obtained information that Isabella was “strangled at midday” by her husband in the presence of several named servants. It was then, and by most historians now, believed that Paolo Giordano killed Isabella in a jealous rage for being implicated in a love affair with Troilo Orsini; some even believe her brother was complicit in the murder. Troilo Orsini shared a similar fate, being mysteriously strangled to death in Paris a while later. While, if guilty, Paolo Giordano escaped any punishment for Isabella’s death—a few years later he would have to flee and go into hiding after being implicated in the murder of his mistress’ husband—he later married his mistress and died in 1585.
Portrait thought by some historians to be of Eleonora, by Alessandro Allori, c. 1571.
Wedding portrait of sixteen year old Isabella by Alessandro Allori.
Sources:
Murder of a Medici Princess, Caroline P. Murphy
Medici Women: Portraits of Power, Love, and Betrayal, Gabrielle Langdon
A Genealogy of Florentine Art, Elizabeth Pilliod, et al.
Isabella de’ Medici: The Glorious Life and Tragic End of a Renaissance Princess, Caroline P. Murphy
